


Lupine, Lapine

by Happy_Cow



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animals, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Breathplay, Breeding, Breeding Kink, Cuckolding, Darkfic, F/M, Knotting, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Master/Pet, Masturbation, Naked Female Clothed Male, Partner Betrayal, Slow Burn, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:55:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24110914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy_Cow/pseuds/Happy_Cow
Summary: On a beautiful day in a beautiful city, a little rabbit met a wolf. She fell in love, and was devoured.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, minor Armitage Hux/Rose Tico - Relationship
Comments: 33
Kudos: 110





	1. Field Dressed

On a fine spring day, where dew dripped off each leaf and neatly cut blade of grass, a rabbit breaks the office photocopier. She hasn’t sat on it, hasn’t spilled anything on it. She had placed the stack of customer invoices in the copier chute and input her order, then Rose came in and waved her good morning, and they talked about television. Beside the rabbit, the poor photocopier begins making gentle grinding sounds, as if hesitant to interrupt.

The rabbit turns and stares at the choking, sputtering machine, before its menu screen blanks and displays a red warning sign: BLOCKAGE IN CONVEYOR BELT, Please Remove. She lifts the lid of the machine and sees the mangled invoice inside; when she reaches in, she rips out about one of three papers. She had forgotten to remove the staple.

x

Several hours and one long scolding later, Rey shambles out of the Division Head’s office. Her sensitive ears ring. She feels very sad, and hungry, because it’s past her lunchbreak, so she meanders her way down the cubicles. 

Her cubicle neighbor, Rose, stops her typing, but won’t swivel her chair away from the desktop. “What’s the damage this time?” she sighs, ever the shrewd raccoon dog. 

Rey pouts, and rubs her ears. Her temple pulses with the light from Rose’s screen. There are no windows in the office unless you had a managerial role and Rey missed the sun. 

“Just take a walk,” says Rose, “get lunch, eat it outside.”

“I will,” the rabbit groans. Rey places a hand to the side of her face and mouths, CATS ARE MEAN.

“What’s that?” chirps Kaydel.

Rose shakes her head, her lip curling over her teeth.

Rey flinches, and pretends to wipe her mouth as Kaydel walks quickly down the aisle, her blonde hair flashing under the halogen light. “Rey, is there anything I can help you with? Rose _seemed_ busy helping me input transactions, but I can find more for you to do...?” 

“N-no,” says Rey, smiling. “I was just, going to the bathroom. I didn’t get to go since-.”

“Okaaay, well, after that, could you-.”

“Sure,” Rey blurts out. “Definitely! I’ll see you soon!” She slips past and steps out of the office.

x

What Rey had meant to say, and what she’d spoken to Rose about before, was that working in the city had been different than she’d thought. Finn had sold her on the dream of species equality, and convinced her to uproot herself from Jakku for it. Rey had imagined a society based off of merit, where she wouldn’t have to thrust her ass up for a rabbit boss, or run from a pack of shitty dog boys that hung out outside bars and strip malls. Naboo was supposed to be different.

Rey extracts her salad bowl from the office fridge. In the elevator corridor, someone has taped a crumpled piece of paper that reads SHOW NOT YOUR FANGS, BUT YOUR HEART. Cute rhetoric. Rey presses the button, waits, and steps inside the open elevator. She is just a dumb bunny. So long as she gets to keep the job and collect her paycheck at the end of the day, she’s fine. Naboo isn’t perfect, but no place is.

The elevator slides to a stop, midway through the building. The doors slide open.

A tall man steps inside. He has dark, wavy hair, and the dark suit he wears cuts a clean figure from his broad shoulders down to his tapered waist. He and then the entire elevator smells one-hundred-percent wolf. Rey steps backwards, as he places himself to the other end of the narrow carriage, hands crossed behind the small of his back.

She isn’t even aware she‘s staring at him, until he makes a low sound in his throat, and rubs underneath his sharp nose.

“M’sorry...” Her words are thick with saliva which she forces herself to swallow. The elevator feels hot, the air thick. 

He stares ahead, unhearing. Rey shuffles uncomfortably, squeezing her thighs together, until at last the elevator slides to a halt. With a ding, the doors open, releasing the wolf. 

Her breath stutters in her throat as she remembers how to breath.

x

“Hey, Rey? What’s with the special get-up?”

A few days pass, before Rose finally makes the mistake of asking why Rey was dressing differently. An entire beauty industry revolves around the frugal working doe; Rey had taken to wearing darker, low cut shirts, and an assortment of spring-colored skirts that swirled around her legs when she walked. She also began to wear heels, and the change in height alarmed Rose. 

Rey raises her eyes, and picks coquettishly at her bowl of leafy greens. “I’m trying a new look,” she says innocently. “You know, to look more ‘put together’.”

“‘Put together’.”

“As *Kaydel* suggested, yes.” Except Rey mouthed the ‘Kaydel’, because saying her name could invoke her at any moment, just like Bloody Mary.

Rose Tico narrows her eyes. “I don’t think ‘put together’ implied lip gloss, though.” 

Rey shrugs. 

“Or...” Rose sniffs. “... I don’t know what that smell is, but it’s not good, Rey.”

Rey sets down her fork, before grabbing the neckline of her shirt and raising it to her nose. Her pink mouth crumples. “You... don’t like it?”

“I don’t like it, no,” says Rose. “It’s like, bad seafood in the back of a hot car. I wouldn’t want to touch anybody who would like it. Did Matt text you back or something?”

Rey huffs and throws her head backwards. “Can you...” Her face colors pink.

“Who is it?” Rose asks. She makes no effort to lower her voice. Rabbit gets crush, rabbit fucks, and then rabbit pumps out eleventy billion kits. Rey had just been stuck on Stage Two for too long.

“We... met, the day... the day the photocopier went kaput.”

“You did that.”

“It was on its last legs. Anyways!” Rey braces her hands on the table, and leans in. Her voice is tremulous. “I went inside the elevator to take my lunch outside, when he... came in. He was tall, and big, and he had dark hair. White, I think, but he has a long, sort of strong nose. Really really big, and hot!” She looks to Rose like she’d know who that is. 

Rose does not know who that is. “Sure,” she says.

Rey looks both ways and places her hands to the sides of her mouth. She mouths her next words. 

At first, Rose thinks Rey’s just expressing how hot she thinks her new tall, dark-haired beau is. But Rey keeps insisting; not _wow_ , not _whoa_. Rose’s eyes widen and she shakes her head. “No, Rey.”

But the rabbit did not listen. 


	2. Hasenpfeffer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the title too owo

Outside of the Supremacy Building is a spacious garden square dedicated to Sheev Palpatine, one of the founders of the city. A bronze statue of his likeness stands on a platform in the center, with his arms outstretched. A smile graces his wrinkled face. Here workers from the surrounding building can walk around, socialize, eat lunch, and feed lunch to the pigeons that occasionally shit on the statue’s hands. It is here that the rabbit stalks the wolf.

Although this is her third time, the rabbit remains an amateur stalker. She breathes through her mouth, and crouches on one of the main thoroughfares, making a foot hazard of herself. In her mind, she is fully convinced that the bush in front of her provides adequate concealment.

Several yards away is the wolf. He is not alone. 

They sit together, side by side, on one of the benches. He is wearing the white button-down shirt without the suit, and a few of the top buttons are open. He has his arm wrapped around the back of the bench, behind the bare shoulders of the beautiful she-wolf beside him. He’s angled his body to trap her where she sits, as if to possess her, but she’s completely at ease. She’s tall, and her hair is long and dark. She looks middle eastern; her skin is flawless, and Rey can’t tell if she’s wearing make-up, though her eyelashes are exquisitely long. 

Rey can’t make out what they’re saying, but she hears the voice of the wolf for the first time: low, and nasally. Soft. The she-wolf’s eyes crinkle at the corner and she replies in her own sultry bass. At her words, his lip curls. They have eyes only for each other.

Rey knows her lunch clock is winding down, but she can’t tear her eyes away. They make a beautiful couple. She doesn’t know when she’ll see the wolf again. Rey wants to cry and feels the tears beneath her eyes. 

Something flutters against her thigh, and she looks down to see a very fat yet bold pigeon, the color of lead. It stares at her with its yellow eyes, thrusting its head at her. It pecks the ground at her feet, expecting the food that should respawn near her. Rey smacks at it with her hand. 

It leaps at her in a ball of furious wings, the flying rat!

“ ** _Aah_**!” she shrieks, shielding her face. She waves her arms until the violent wingbeats subside. When she opens her eyes, she sees someone standing in front of her bush. Rey cranes her neck, and sees him.

She nearly falls on her bum, but her hands catch her in time. Quickly, she stands up, and rubs her hands together to get rid of some of the dust. Her memory had dulled and she had only had fleeting glimpses of his face, his size, his scent. She could feel her inward perception of the wolf correcting — this the length of his shoes, the width of his legs, the way he places his hands on his waist when he’s about to speak.

“ _What are you doing_?” he snaps, the anger in his voice. “You know I’ve been ignoring you, right?”

“I was. I was,” she says, rubbing her elbow. She raises her eyes to meet his face. His dark eyes, long nose, those lips. She notices for the first time the smattering of beauty marks and imagines brushing them with her lips.

Normally, a rabbit doe doesn’t need to pursue. There are no shortages of bucks; if two bucks want the same doe, they fight, and the winner gets the doe. Now there is only the wolf, and the wolf stood there, stock still.

“Ever since,” she begins, “I saw you, on the elevator, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

She pauses too long, enough for him to fold his arms and deliver a barb: “That sounds like _your_ problem, not _mine_.”

“I wanted, to ask if we could go out for lunch?” So great is her anxiety, she doesn’t hear him and she forgot the she-wolf. The she-wolf is gone.

“I don’t date herbivores,” he says. “Sorry. Goodbye.”

“Wait,” her hand shoots out and catches the crook of his elbow. His skin is hot and hard beneath the fabric, and he looks down at her hand. “I’m not an herbivore.” Lie. “At least not completely.” Better.

A muscle in his jaw jumps, and his eyelashes flutter. 

At last Rey removes her hand. “I like tofu.”

He grimaces. “You’re shitting me,” he mutters.

“And eggs!” Rey adds. “And sometimes I will enjoy a plate of chapulines, if it’s on the menu.” In Rey’s experience, he’ll assume it’s a kind of exotic sausage and he won’t ask. All canids are the same.

He frowns. Even his dubious contempt looks sexy as fuck. Rey’s mouth waters as she forces herself to keep her eyes above his belt. There’s another kind of meat she wouldn’t mind choking down.

At once he draws a sharp breath through his nose, then puffs out of his mouth. “Why not.” Rey gasps. He looks down at the wide, shiny watch on his wrist. “I’ve got an hour to kill.”

Her heart stutters. She looks down at her own Five and Below watch. “Um... now?” He taps his foot impatiently on the walkway. “S-sure.” She can make up maybe an hour. 

“Great. I know just the place.” He turns abruptly. Rey yelps and grabs her salad bag from off the ground before running after him.

x

They go to a very _red_ place. There’s a number of them near the square: historic restaurants with white tablecloth and a darkened interior. Each of them has a theme that makes it unique. In this one, the insides are styled like a wooden hunting lodge. The walls are lined with taxidermy heads. A large, tusked boar’s head covered in ropy fur gazes down at the dining room with clouded glass eyes. Rey immediately hates this place.

“This was one of my favorite restaurants,” the wolf says. “I used to go once a week for happy hour when I was younger. It hasn’t changed a bit.” He eyes her from his peripheral, hands in his pockets. “Do you like it..?”

“It - it has character,” says Rey.

“It does.”

The suited host looks like a Dobermann, but Rey isn’t too sure. Only dogs are good at correctly identifying other dogs. He is thin and stands as straight as a pike, and he turns his head sharply to whoever is talking. The host left for a moment to ‘check for seating’ even though Rey could see empty tables inside. When he returns, he comes back unsmiling, his head swiveling between the two of them. “Apologies for the wait, would you two like a booth, or a table?”

TABLE she doesn’t want to sit underneath one of those dead animal heads.

“Booth. I don’t want people walking behind me when I eat,” the wolf says, and he nods to her like he’s seeking affirmation.

“Very good.” After a moment the host raises his head. “Also, ma’am, I’m sorry to say but we don’t allow outside food within the dining area.”

“Oh no,” says the wolf, turning to her.

“...It’s fine. Where can I leave this?” She can put her bag in the coat closet or whatever, and then stir-fry the wilted greens for dinner. 

The host shakes his head. “I’m sorry; we don’t...”

“I’ll handle it, dear,” the wolf promises with a smile. He takes her plastic salad bag from her hands, his gallantry making her blush. Then he steps closer to the host’s wooden podium, to gently push her salad inside the trash bin.

“Very good, sir,” the host says, with a nod.

x

They are sat beneath a ram with massive curling horns, and a white nose that glistens with dust. Because of its horizontal pupils, Rey feels like its gazing down at the entire restaurant, and most especially at her. 

The wolf orders boiled beef and mash and a beer. Rey feels the safest option would be the Garden Salad, until he says, “My friend will have the potato salad.” He folds his menu shut and hands it to the waiter, smiling. It’s fine. It has bacon, but Rey has had bacon bits before. It’s barely a ‘meat’. 

“Are you nervous?” he says, turning to her. 

The other customers are on the other side of the dining room, farthest from the window. They’re an old pair of wolverines, and a small group of uniformed dogs with thin, withered faces. Rey feels their stares. She can deal with them. She’s met worse. “I’m fine,” she says brightly.

“Hm.” He lets himself fall back in his seat, the leather seat catching him. “We’ll see. What do I call you, bunny?”

Bunny is good; she doesn’t mind that. “My name‘s Rey.”

“Short names are good. I’m Ben.” He’d say more, but the waiter brings his beer in a foam-topped tankard and he needs a taste of that, first. The foam sticks to his upper lip, and his tongue darts out to lick it off. Rey sees a flash of his sharp teeth. 

“So, uh. Rey.” He rests his elbow on the table and rests his chin on his fist. “Have you ever... _stalked_ any other people before?”

Rey ponders. Sometimes she would follow a cute boy for about a block and then lose interest. Sometimes she would check her boyfriends’ phones to see if they were cheating. Sometimes she would check an ex-boyfriends’ Instagram to see if he moved on. It’s not really stalking. “No.”

“What’s with the long pause? Were you thinking about it?” he asks. “I would understand if you have. Aren’t rabbits really jealous?” Then he places his free hand on the table, and he wets his finger with the perspiration on the tankard. “The next time that you stalk another wolf... or dog... or anything with a nose, you need to know the direction of the wind.” 

Ben starts to paint shapes onto the table, before grabbing the salt and pepper shakers to the side and placing them in such and such positions. He points at the salt shaker and says, “This is you.” He points at the pepper shaker. “Me. And this is the direction the wind was going.” He makes a swooping motion with his hand, from the salt up to the pepper.

Rey fidgets. “You... you knew I was there the whole time?” she asks.

“Bazine wanted to _skin_ you for your pelt. So I told her that rabbits have a harder time tying their shoes.” He smugly smiles at his own wit, before snatching up the salt shaker.

“Not funny,” Rey snaps. Then, slowly, “Is Bazine your...” There’s one specific name that wolves use, not ‘girlfriend’. “... mate?”

There’s a pause, then, “No.” Then he sets down the salt shaker, with the care of a man playing chess. “You could’ve hid here,” he explains.

x

Their food arrives at the same time. Rey’s ‘potato salad’ comes warm, and it looks and smells strongly of mustard. The rabbit is startled by the first bite — it’s not garnished by Bacon Bits, but instead by fatty, crispy chunks of the real deal. Her stomach roils at the taste, but she doesn’t want to spit in a napkin in front of him. She forces herself to swallow it; she’s starved before and she’s not too good for meat.

“Good, huh?” says the wolf, before tucking into his own meal of boiled beef and vegetable mash. It also comes with some delicious roasted root vegetables, like turnips and carrots. After a few minutes he proposes a trade; his nose crinkles in distaste at ‘two of the same sides’ and he likes the smell of her potato salad. It’s not too bad; if there were a vegetarian plate of just side dishes, then Rey wouldn’t terribly mind coming again. 

The bill comes, and to Rey’s utter surprise Ben just pays for the entire dinner himself. MasterCard sends Rey an alert text whenever Rose picks the restaurant they eat at, but still. She feels embarrassed. The waiter gives her a weird look when he returns with the receipt and tip sheet.

Once they’re outside, walking back to the office, Rey murmurs to him, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Well I did. It’s done and in the past.” He shrugs. His hands are in his pockets and he walks at a leisurely pace. “I didn’t really like the way they looked at you. That waiter didn’t deserve a tip at all if I gotta be honest.”

“Don’t say that!” Rey cries, distressed.

“Usually they’re more personable than that, but they couldn’t even bother to refill your water,” Ben goes on gloomily. “No wonder it’s dead in there.”

“But you liked the food though,” says Rey. 

“... Do you feel bad for them?” he says, his eyes crinkling like that’s an outrageous thing to feel. “I guess I’ll go back because there’s not many German places left, but that’s not anytime soon. They don’t deserve it.”

She’s worried that this has been a bad date. And this was their first date, wasn’t it? “Maybe - next time, _I’ll_ treat _you_?”

His brows raise, his eyes flicker. He makes a low sound in his throat. “While that sounds fun, I need to say that, for me, a meal isn’t a meal without meat,” he answers dubiously.

Rey frowns at him. She’s not exactly sure what to say; she thinks he’s never dated an herbivore before. “We can go to an omnivore place,” she deadpans. Even a food hall, if you want to walk around the city. But she doesn’t say that aloud; he seems to have expensive, white tablecloth tastes.

He blinks. “Right,” he mumbles. “Yeah.”

“Could I... get your number?” She feels warm all over. This is really happening, isn’t it?

Ben looks to her and nods, color staining the bridge of his nose. 

And so the rabbit crawled into the mouth of the wolf.


	3. Stuffed Bunny

A sweetly scented breeze moves past the flowering cherry blossoms and dogwoods that line the park across the street. A wax moon hovers close to the tops of apartments, these visible only by neatly stacked rows of warm lights. Each lit or darkened window represents a separate, unique life. Within one of these windows, where the drapes are drawn closed, the rabbit masturbates.

It’s a quick ritual performed at the end of each night. At the tail-end of a porn addiction, Rey would normally go cold for three days and indulge herself on the fourth. An imagination can only carry for so long. But this season is different. A pillow and a knot toy.

She gets on her hands and knees on the bed, clutching her ironic Darth Vader dakimakura (it was a gift) (it’s the only pillow long enough for this) (she doesn’t look at him). Over the next few minutes she bounces her hips faster and faster, hugging the pillow like a jockey on a horse, her fingers digging into the fabric. The red knot toy buzzes as the little battery inside of it chugs and chugs and it pushes up the soft plastic inside to inflate the tip. She slows a moment because of the sting but then resumes the brutal pace like a born champion. She sees the finish line feels her vision going grey. She’s going to make it going to make it. Finishes. With a quiet, sucking gasp of air. 

Her paws scrabble against the bed, just like her foremothers’ before her once the act was done. Then she planks and lays there, breathing softly, wondering what the fuck is wrong with her. Her hair curls and sticks to her face. Her phone buzzes loudly against the bedside table. She looks at it dumbly, spits her hair out of her mouth and grabs it.

She inputs her password into the screen, and recognizes the caller. Answers it.

“Ben?” She says, sitting up on the pillow. The toy presses itself inside wetly. A stuttered breath.

“Is something wrong?” he asks. 

“No! No,” her voice weirdly high and breathy in her own ears. “Um. Hi.”

“Hi.” A pause. “What... what are you doing up? I didn’t know that rabbits are nocturnal.”

“I’m crepuscular,” Rey says automatically. SAT word.

“Oh,” says the wolf. There’s a pause. “I forgot why I called you. It seemed so urgent, but it’s _gone_ from me now. I’ll just hang up.” 

“Wait,” says Rey, kneading the blanket. Now she’s mildly intrigued. She raises her hips, trying to find a comfortable position to better remove the toy one-handed. “We can talk until you remember it.” It’s possible it could just slide out on its own. “If you hold off on it, you might not remember it tomorrow.”

Her hand slides between her legs, fingers meeting slick. After a while he makes a neutral sound.

“What’re you doing?” she asks.

“It was nice outside, so I decided to go for a run.”

Matt used to do his little night runs when he got excited. It was one of his cuter traits. “Got the zoomies?”

“What?”

Her hand freezes. Wolves don’t like being dogs. Wolves don’t like being dogs. “Exercise.”

“That’s not what you said earlier.” Then, “Do you wanna come out?”

A shiver begins from her shoulders outward, in. “I don’t know, Ben...” She should press speaker. That way she can have both of her hands. She presses speaker and his soft, nasally voice fills her room. “Where are you now? What’s it like out there?”

“It’s... busy,” he says. “I’m close to the office.”

“Ick,” Rey huffs, before flipping onto her back. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Just found myself here.”

“ _Workaholic_. I bet you dream about work in your sleep.” She lets her knees fall to either side. “No. I know what exactly I’ll find outside right now: horny animals in heat!” Hypocrite. “There’s probably like fifty bucks out there, just patrollin’. Looking for anything that moves.”

There’s a pause and then there’s a weird sound that’s his laughter that surprises her. “I forgot that you call your males ‘bucks’, like deer. That’s weird.” 

It helps if you sit up and relax, go boneless below the waist. Reach down and touch it gently, _gently_ — it only goes off once for safety purposes. Now that you know where it is, you can gently pinch the rim and ease it out. The slick makes this easy. That’s it. 

“I would protect you, Rey. _I’d break their fucking spines if they touched you_.” _ABORT abort_ “You know that.”

The rabbit squeaks in reply. 

“What was that noise?” he says sharply. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m. Fine.”

“What are you even doing?” he asks. 

Having a meltdown. “Bunny... _stuff_.” 

“Oh I see. Thank you, Rey, that isn’t vague at all. You’re doing _bunny_ _stuff_.” Rey grits her teeth. She’s pretty sure she can hear the belts and whistles whirring inside of his head. When his voice returns it’s thicker, changed, “ _Who’s_ with you?”

It’s a change in the air. “... Nobody,” she says. “Just me.” She brings her hands to her chest

“Is he listening to this? Hello?” he insists. Snuffling, like he can smell through the phone. “It’s better if you tell me now, Rey. I’ll catch him on you tomorrow.”

Her face heats up, and uncontrollably her body’s _grip_ around the deflated knot _tightens_. “No, Ben I’m _alone_ ,” she whines, hands absently rubbing her chest. The fine goosebumps on her skin prickle.

“ _For your sake I hope so_ ,” he promises. The call ends. 

It was a very long and lonely night, for the rabbit.


	4. Pickled, Preserved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ffs 'slow burn',,, I guess I needed a grimoire to slow cook th rabbit but we will Get There. by chapter 6.  
> rey is very stringy, you see

It is a very bright and sunny morning this Monday. Both predator and prey meet face-to-face over coffees or in the subway car. They greet each other with drawn, warm smiles. As if to say, 

_All will be good today._

_I am a human, again_. 

_There is nothing to fear, from me_. 

Birds chirp gaily in the trees outside. On this good and peaceable day, the rabbit thoroughly showers in the morning with scentless soap. She takes her heat suppressant pill with her apple and oatmeal breakfast. No makeup, no perfume. For good measure, she rubs scent-suppressant on her armpits and her neck, and on her genitals for good measure. She dresses conservatively in dark colors. When she at last leaves the safety of her apartment with her dark purse, a few of her older next door neighbors nod with approval. This is the ideal, sexless rabbit: the doe who is not ‘asking for it’. 

When Rey gets to the office, the raccoon dog is cold to her new change in wardrobe. Rose has had a visibly late night; the tell-tale shadows ring her eyes. 

“Oh good morning, Rey!” chirps Kaydel, who spots them from the aisle and stalks quickly towards them. She looks over the rabbit, her Cheshire smile turning to a Cheshire frown. “I’m so sorry — who died?” She presses her manicured paws together.

“... No one,” sighs Rey. She moves past Rose’s cubicle and sits herself into hers. 

“Oh. Well good! I’ve left your portion of the invoices from Friday on your desk. Do you remember Friday? Thanks!” Kaydel chirps, before stalking off.

Five hours pass. The sun makes its way across a perfect blue sky that the rabbit could not see. The rabbit works very hard on her computer, and when her eyes hurt she leans away to press her hands against her face. Whenever she touches her eyes, she feels a stab of fear — she is afraid of myxomatosis, the White Blindness. It is a terrible disease that begins with swelling of the eyelids, then of the entire face. Then ugly lesions break out all over the body. In a week, it reaches the lungs and it hurts to breathe, and the body that once ran so fast and loved so much gets colder, colder. The eyes swell shut and there’s only darkness. In twelve days, the poor little rabbit is dead.

  
  


Fingers brush against the back of her neck.

  
  


Rey jolts in her seat. The light from the monitor sears her retinas. She blinks out the spots in her vision and swivels her seat around, but she smells him first. Still, she can’t help but look up at him.

  
  


The wolf. He steps back, placing himself in the entrance of her cubicle. He wears a navy blue suit, with a black undershirt, and black dress pants. His hair is slicked back and shiny with product, and his long face likewise glistens in the light. There’s color on the bridge of his nose. Rey opens her mouth, but he raises a hand and places his index finger over his lips. _Not now_. He points at his shiny, expensive watch, then points at the slab of his iPhone in his hand.

  
  


Rey smooths her shaking hands over her pencil skirt, the waxy suppressant sticking her undershirt to her armpits. _Ok_ she mouths, nodding. He grins and backs out of the cubicle just as she mouths, _I love you_.

x

At close of business, there are people throwing a frisbee across Palpatine square. So instead, the rabbit and the wolf walk the streets of the city. They have no plan. It remains unsaid, but is assumed, that when they get hungry they will eat wherever is closest to them.

Ben takes off his navy suit and slings it over his shoulder, and underneath Rey finds that he’s wearing an A-shirt. She sees the hint of dark hair beneath his armpit. His hair is slicked back, revealing large and shapely ears. He walks with a purposeful saunter, eyes forward. In short he looks like the lean and hungry wolf, that stalks dark woods and snaps up lost does.

“I was going to ask if you wanted to play basketball,” he says abruptly, “but, you smell like a nun...” His tone is slightly accusatory.

“... I’m sorry, Ben. Y’know, I can still play, I’d just have to go in my socks...” She looks down and notices for the first time that he’s wearing Nikes. 

“It’s okay. I don’t have a ball,” he says, gloomily.

Her neck itches as the heat of the sun focuses on the paraffin wax, and she tugs at the collar of her shirt. Rey feels like she’s overdressed for no reason. And the reason is sulking next to her. “Ben,” she says, “about last night-.”

“I don’t care,” he says lightly.

The light ahead changes to Don't Walk. They halt. A female deer in hotpants jogs around the corner. There’s two tiger cubs in Catholic school uniforms, waiting at the intersection. Their golden eyes watch the wolf and the rabbit dubiously. Rey saunters over to the traffic pole to look at the stickers layered on its metal surface. There’s only one this time.

“What’re you looking at?” Ben says, behind her.

She taps the one sticker, which looks like a circle with spikes inside of it. Like a lamprey mouth. Red on black. “What do you think that is?”

Ben looks at it, and he shrugs his shoulders. “Probably just a band,” he says, bored. When the WALK symbol blinks on, he places his hand on her hip. Rey inhales sharply, before she’s gently pulled along with him across the street. One of the cubs sees and she gasps, _scandalized_ , and must be pulled away by the elder.

When they’re far enough away and unseen, Rey grabs Ben’s arm in her hands. “Weren’t they _cute_?” she gushes. “You rarely see one of their adults and we get to see two _babies_.”

Ben’s face screws in confusion. “The bigger one was almost as tall as you.” His grip tightens on her waist and he lowers his lips to his ear, his breath hot and low; “ _You shouldn’t have turned your back on them_.”

The rabbit twists out of his grasp, flustered, affronted. “Ben! They’re babies!” she gasps. 

“You don’t turn your back to an ambush predator,” he says, like it’s something ludicrous he’s forced to say aloud for her benefit. “I’m not saying anything _wrong_. It’s in their nature. You _know_ that, right? How have you lived this long?”

Rey feels a spark of bright frustration. “You know they’re schoolchildren, yes?” she says.

“For now.” In two soft words he dismisses her; from birth to dead a predator is a predator, _period_. They cannot help what they do. You cannot expect more. Rey feels herself warm in the face, but she doesn’t know what to say. Rose would know, but Rose isn’t here. Between Rey and Ben, he is the wolf and the predator.

At the next DON’T WALK sign, he leans towards her and says, “Wolf pups are _cuter_ , by the way,” then straightens. 

No! No, she must stay mad at him, out of principle. The WALK signal blinks on and Rey moves ahead. Ben keeps pace, right beside her and he stares at her but she doesn’t want to look at him, the uppity know-it-all wolf. 

His fingers brush her palm, before interlocking with her own fingers. The frustration dissolves into surprise. “I’ll have to... have to see proof,” Rey mutters.

“You will,” he says, pleased. Their hands swing between them. “My mother should have some lying around.” Rey gazes at him, starry-eyed. “She’s a retired politician,” he says quickly. “Wolves sometimes recognize her on the street and make their pups take pictures next to her.”

“Aw,” pouts Rey. “That’s cute.” Still cute, though not as much as his puppy pictures. Maybe she can recognize his mom... Correction: Poe Dameron could could recognize this wolf’s mother; Poe is big in politics whereas Rey is big in dumb. 

“ _Kylo Ren_?”

The wolf halts. His hand slips out of hers and he whips around to the source of the voice. Rey follows his eyes.

Two teens approach, too fast for Rey’s liking. One is a big blonde dog like a Labrador, and Rey doesn’t recognize the scent of the other one, but he’s lean and dark and about Rey’s height, and under his arm he holds a basketball. “It really is you,” gushes the dog.

“Ha! It really is,” says Ben, his face frozen in a smile and a grimace. 

The dog’s right paw shoots upwards, palm forward and his friend does the same. Ben nods his head and they lower their hands. “Listen, I — recorded some of your talks for my grandfather and he loves it,” says the dog, rubbing his elbow. “He says it’s like the old ways.”

“Oh. That’s really cool of you,” Ben says, his features softening. 

Encouraged, the dog hops in place. “Could I get, a selfie with you?” he asks. 

“... For your grandpa, okay?” says Ben. “Don’t stick it up on the Internet for clout.” The dog nods, ecstatic, and he pulls his phone from his shorts.

Rey feels awkward, but she’s amused and a little intrigued. She wonders what talks the wolf gives. While they’re occupied, she notices the dog’s friend sort of looking at her, basketball in hand. “Hey,” she says. “Y’know, he and I were just talking about playing basketball, but he forgot to bring a ball. If you want, we can do two-on-two?”

The boy steps away from her, as if startled at being addressed. He opens his mouth, revealing the pricks of little fangs, and he asks in a soft and rasping voice, “S-sir, is she... yours?”

Before Rey gets to ponder this Ben cuts in, “Yes, you could say that.” The photo shoot done, he reaches over and grasps Rey’s shoulder. “I have all the entertainment I need for tonight, gentlemen, but it was very nice to meet you.”

The dog gazes at his phone screen, before looking at the rabbit and the wolf. “Thank you so much, Mister Ren.” He licks his lips, before his eyes flicker to the rabbit. “Thank you, _Sir_.”

“So what was that?” Rey asks, when they’ve walked far enough away. “Why do they call you _Kylo_?” He’s quiet, staring straight ahead, so instead she asks perhaps an easier questions: “What was the other one? The one besides the dog.”

“That’s an otter, Rey,” he says.

He breathes sharply out of his nose. “Do you know what it’s like, being a carnivore in a city..?” Your food comes in neat little squares, sterilized, frozen for x many months. Tasteless. There’s no place to run. No _release_.

Herbivores can do no wrong, under the law. Herbivores can only be the victim and never the perpetrator. Despite a significantly lower population size and birth rate when compared to herbivores, they make up the majority of the prison population. Because they’re innately aggressive, innately violent. But there really is no right to complain when carnivores are also politicians, managers, and cops, is there.

Ben stops abruptly and suddenly Rey realizes that they’re at a different park. “What’s wrong?” Rey asks.

He shrugs, and places his hands in his pockets. “I don’t... know,” he says. 

How long had they been walking? Where is this? It’s a beautiful, spacious lawn with trees to provide shade. There’s joggers, and some people have picnic blankets laid in the grass. Her heart thrums in her chest.

“Does what I say _bother_ you?” he asks at last.

  
  


“No,” she says, flummoxed. She realizes in fact that the wolf is much more than she’s believed. He’s well-spoken, and intelligent. He’s compassionate. “I like the sound of your voice,” she says.  
  


At this, he smiles. His face colors.  
  


He was embarrassed at the waste of words. In his mind he wondered, how he could have held such anger towards the simple little rabbit.


	5. Salted, Cured

It is a warm and gentle spring. The vault of the sky is an endless blue, occasionally dotted with clouds of a pure white. When it rains the downpour is light and brief, and in minutes the sun appears and the air grows sweet. It was so easy to fall in love with him.

Ben is intelligent and self-assured, where most canids only have the latter. He can be caustic and quick to judge, as was their first date, but he can change his mind just as quickly. He can even pretend he never held the last opinion until Rey bullies him into fessing up.

They have gone out for a late-night drink and some bar appetizers, where they happened to catch a band playing. It’s the weekend and he’s nocturnal, whereas she’s crepuscular.

“I never said I hated it!” The wolf crows. He walks a pleased, jaunty swagger with a bounce in each step. He has somehow lost his long coat, but ‘wolves don’t get cold’ so he’s in a Dartmouth tee and jeans. “I can eat, tofu, but as a snack and not a meal.”

“Is that why you finished off my plate?” cries the rabbit. She has to keep up a fast walk to keep up with him, but she’s crepuscular and these are her hours. Around her shoulders, and slapping against her ankles, is the wolf’s missing coat. At the moment, she doesn’t remember this and she thinks she wore this wolf-scented coat to the bar.

“You had the celery sticks. You had all the celery sticks and carrots.”

“You are a greedy man,” Rey counters. “You think just because you’re bigger than me, you can steal the crumbs off my plate! It’s not right!”

“That’s How That Works. I can take anything from you, because I’m bigger. I’m sorry, Rey, but I didn’t make the Laws of Nature.” This is incredibly funny to him, so he starts smiling again and snorting. 

“What’s so funny?” Rey demands. “Walk slower!

He shakes his head, the smile on his face slackens. His eyes are focused elsewhere. Rey huffs. Taking her advantage, she reaches over and loops her hand in the crook of his arm. This turns him from his reverie, and he slows down his pace.

Normally he needs to step away, or pretend there’s something stuck to the bottom of his shoe, but he takes scent of the air. The street is empty save for the occasional taxi scouting the street, and the drivers can’t smell them. At the moment, they’re a normal couple. They’ve chased each other through the streets, they play-fought until she cried so loud to wake the dogs, but tonight this slowness is fine. So he lets her hold onto him.

They come to Rey’s old tenant apartment. The name is a generic ‘Green Springs’, in garish cursive on a plaque outside the building. With names like that, he knows what the demographics are inside. Rey sighs and slides her hand out of his arm, her skin feeling so much colder. 

“I had a really nice night, Mr. Wolf,” she says. “You need to wear that t-shirt to trivia night... Put that degree to good use.” She raises a small hand and pats the DARTMOUTH across his chest with tender affection. He makes a chomping motion at her wrist and she darts away, giggling. Then she heads to the door, her hands on her purse. She needs the key card to get in.

“Rey?” he says. She turns around. He sways lightly on his feet. “Are... are you gonna invite me in?”

She freezes, stock still, one hand on the clasp of her purse. She’s brought dogs inside. Common cats get the side-eye, but only because of the uptick in break-ins. She wants to say yes, her body wants to say yes, but what will he think when he sees the state of her apartment? And this is the longest she’s ever gone without sleeping with ... a male companion. They haven’t kissed yet and he only holds hands when they’re alone. Will it change things? Will it ruin everything they had? 

“Forget it,” he blurts out. He steps backwards. “Never mind. Forget I asked.” Before she can stop him, he turns and lopes off into the empty street.

x

A week passes.

The raccoon dog is nocturnal, too, but not a sympathetic listener. Rose thinks that losing the wolf can only be a sign of ‘good things to come’. To her the only option is to pull yourself up, block his number, and get a new boyfriend if she had to have dick. 

The rabbit is ready to cry all over again, but she really doesn’t want to. This is a night club. Anything with a nose can smell tears, I.e. weakness. A week has passed, but he doesn’t reply to any of her texts. Rey spends each night curled up in his coat, and it’s beginning to lose his scent. 

Rose rolls her eyes. “Go dance it off, Rey,” she cries over the music. “You love to dance. Just let nature take over.”

“I said I’m not in the mood, Rose,” snaps Rey. The water in her eyes makes her eyeliner burn. She didn’t know why she agreed to this. She thought Rose wanted to go out, but it seems this was for her benefit. Like a benevolent pimping-out. And in her mind, time past unspools into a line graph. Rey begins to form a pattern of incidents where Rose has proposed dancing, which she now notices correlates with the rabbit’s bouts of profound depression. Because all of her problems can be solved with a dicking down. Until now.

“Excuse me.” A thin, red-haired man wanders close. He’s wearing shorts, and he sways lightly on his feet. He’s pale in the face, but the hair and his sharp eyes are clearly vulpine. Rose clearly leans away to try to offer up the rabbit. He opens his mouth. “What _are_ you?” he asks, and he splays his hand.

It takes a moment. Then, Rose realizes he’s looking at her. He repeats his question. Neither of the girls can tell how drunk he is; foxes hold their alcohol well, and they like their games. “I’m human,” says Rose, slowly. Her lip curls.

The fox waves his hand dismissively, then aims his finger back at Rose. “Oh aren't we all, kumbaya. I mean, what _are_ you, love? Please, I have a lot of money riding on this.”

“I dunno. What the fuck are _you_?” snaps Rose, cocking her head.

He recoils as if slapped. “Well don’t bite _my_ head off.”

“Beat it, _fox_. We’re not interested.”

A nasty look reels across his face. He lingers, swaying his hips. “Come now, do I need to guess?” He sniffs. “An Oriental... doggy? A bear? Are you a red panda?” Rose’s metal stool grates against the floor. “Well alright then,” he hums, before disappearing into the crowd.

Rey shivers and wraps her arms around herself. When she looks into the dark, she replays the scene from last week, trying to recall his face, and the tone of his last words. Why he grew so offended with her. She can’t imagine dancing _now_ , or feeling a drunken knot rub against her bum. The only creatures here are nasty strangers who don’t give a damn about who she is. She wants to go home.

Rose can sit here and rot for all Rey cares. She taps her friend and tells her that she’s going to the bathroom, and the jaded raccoon-dog nods. 

x

Men are talking. It is a sharp spring night. The air carries the tang of metal, and the sickly sour slaver of carnivores. But heaviest of all is the scent of fear.

The rabbit lays on the floor of her cage in a heavily drugged state. She is only drawn out of it, when one of the men outside murmurs, “Isn’t this one _Kylo’s_?” 

She raises her head a fraction. Her body feels cold, and distant from her. There are stadium lights trained on her to disorient her vision. Rey keeps very, very still. Another voice replies, “If you can believe a word out of Hux’s mouth.” 

“The smell is there, but it’s faint.”

“Really..? No. I thought his kind are big on ‘soul mates’ or shit like that. They only take the _one_.”

“Maybe he keeps that one for breeding, and this one for recreation.”

The two men laugh and there is a clicking sound before they move on. When she swallows, her throat stings. There’s a chemical taste in her mouth. At last, she pushes herself to a sitting position. 

It is a metal carrier, with a stained blue mattress at the bottom. Above is a plastic black handle with which to hold the cage. There’s only enough room to curl into a ball. She’s dressed in a tee, and her pajama shorts. Her knees are bruised blue and black. There’s gauze wrapped around the inside of her left wrist. Rey shoves her fingers out of the bars and finds a metal padlock shutting the cage door. Rey does not like being trapped, not one bit. She braces her back against the back of the cage and smashes her bare feet against the hinge of the door. The metal bars make a sound like cymbals clashing and it stings the soles of her feet. But the more she kicks, the more it sounds like shopping carts clashing together.

“ _Stop that at once_.” Rey turns and shrinks in the cage, as a massive woman approaches. She’s pale and her scent is feline. Her hand wraps around the handle and Rey feels her _lift_ the entire carrier. The woman lets go. Rey falls to the ground with a crash, and smacks her elbows on the metal bars. 

Rey spits and pushes herself off the stained mattress. That feline bitch. She sees the woman looking down at her and despite herself, Rey fixes her with an evil eye.

The woman turns away, but Rey kicks at the door and screams. The carnivore returns. She whips her leg out. The carrier flips over and the mattress slams onto the rabbit. As soon as Rey can push it off, she screams and the woman returns, her lip curled. 

“Phasma!” The redheaded man steps in front of her and waves his arms. “Phasma, she is trapped in there! Only _you_ have the power to damage that cage!” Only _you_ have the power to prevent forest fires, says Smokey Bear.

“What if I _want_ to damage, that cage,” says Phasma.

“I saw you,” Rey yells.

“You would lose a tidy sum of money,” says the fox. “You would greatly upset a number of our compatriots. She is just a little _rabbit_ , you see.”

“There is a surplus of rabbits,” says Phasma. Rey screams to be let out, but is ignored. 

“This is a _special_ rabbit,” says the fox. He raises his hands in defeat. “Supreme Leader’s orders, Commander. One of his _enrichment items_. I’m ever so sorry.”

This puts the woman in a sour mood. She sullenly _kicks_ the carrier to an upright position, where the handle clangs over top and Rey smacks against the wall of the cage.

The fox saunters over, with his hands in his pockets. A long baton dangles from his waist. He is out of shorts and now wears a black longcoat, with shoulder pads and boots to bulk up his thin and wiry frame. A strange red pin hangs from his lapel. Rey slams her foot in his direction. Hatred runs in her veins. If she were cut loose, she would wring his skinny neck with her hands.

The fox recoils, frowning. “You could do to make yourself a little more _endearing_ ,” he suggests. “That racket you make is inconsiderate to those of us with sensitive ears, I thought you would know.”

“Fuck your ears,” mutters Rey. 

The man takes the baton at his waist and presses it. A new scent fills the air. Before Rey can place it, he jams the end of the stick through the bars and it brushes the end of her foot. Pain chokes her. Her body fails. She smells something burning. 

“There’s the stick!” The fox yells from a world away. “And should you behave, you will get the carrot!”

Her foot feels numb, and jittery. Gingerly, she pulls it closer to herself to protect it. Any weight sends a jolt of feeling through her spinal cord. She needs to rest. Escape will come later, and it will come easier once her foot feels better. Other scents filter in through her nose: dogs and cats, rabbits, piss, sweat, tears, blood. She can’t get the scent of fresh air and the air smells recycled, she can hear a generator somewhere. A warehouse?

Somewhere is a loud banging and new scents filter in. There’s the entrance and exit. Lions and tigers, and bears. When they get close enough she can see them wearing the same pin. They laugh and they treat this like a day at the carnival. Rey tucks her arms around her legs and she waits.

And she waits. The fox approaches and kindly asks if the dogs would step away from her, she is reserved for the time being. Her crying falls on deaf ears. Try as she might, these were not the friendly creatures she saw at work and in the streets. A carrot is shoved into her cell. Rey picks at it curiously; the green top is wilted, and there’s a large black cavity on its side.

And the rabbit waited, and waited.


	6. Carpaccio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big chapter,, the lemon comeths

He stands in front of her so she can only make out his silhouette; he is her first relief from the blinding light. Slowly, Rey uncurls herself. She had forgotten how large he was, how finely proportioned. She wishes to look closer at his face.

Hands wrap around his midriff, and the face of the she-wolf appears from over his shoulder. “There you are,” she huffs. “... and the little rabbit, too.”

The she-wolf approaches the cage and hunches down. Rey panics and presses herself to the corner of the cage. “Hello, little rabbit,” says the she-wolf. “Do you remember me..?”

Rey swallows. Right. This is Benjamin’s friend, _Bazine_. The dark, beautiful she-wolf balances on stiletto heels. Those impeccably feathered eyes gaze back at her. “Can you help me?” Rey whispers.

Penciled eyebrows furrow. “What happened to your foot?” asks Bazine, softly. “Can I see?” Her eyes are so vibrantly gold, they appear to glow. And her voice is deep, and there’s something florid in the scent of her breath. Rey shifts her body and shows her the sole of her foot.

“I see,” says the she-wolf, pouting. After some observation, she declares, “We will have to amputate.” She stands up briskly. “Kylo, will you buy me _this_ one?” The she-wolf raises a hand and draws it over his broad chest.

The wolf steps backward.

Bazine grabs his shoulder and he tries to twist away, but the fabric of his shirt catches in her claws. His teeth flash in his mouth —.

Hurriedly, the fox rushes over and clears his throat. “Kylo Ren! Why, Bazine, this is a surprise! I take it you’ve convinced your mate to finally join us!”

“It’s not me that’s convinced him, Armi,” mutters Bazine. Her arms cross over her chest.

“I —.” The fox would say more, but suddenly Ben turns to him and grabs him by the lapel. The fox yips and tries to pull away, but Ben reaches into one of the inside of the fox’s long coat and pulls out a red vial. “-Oh-ho! You’ve spoiled the surprise,” says the fox, clearly shaken. “Clearly _you_ are the top dog, in this test of wiles.”

Bazine lifts her nose and her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “God, I’m thirsty. Share some of that, will you, Kylo?” Instead, the wolf wraps his other hand around the fox’s throat and he _squeezes_. The fox chokes and his eyes bulge in his head. “ **KYLO**!” snarls the she-wolf. 

The wolf releases him, and the fox stumbles about several feet away, gasping and snarling. “The _Supreme Leader_ will hear about this,” he promises, rubbing his throat. 

The she-wolf, too, looks at Ben with consternation on her face. The other carnivores are drawn by the in-fighting and now they observe sharply the combatants and the source. The wolf stumbles closer toward the rabbit’s cage, and his hand wraps around the handle. The cage _lifts_ off of the ground, with Rey inside. Her insides lurch, but he doesn’t drop her the way the tall woman had. Ben begins to walk. They’re leaving. Rey’s leaving, and Ben is saving her.

They pass by the great walls of the warehouse and step into the night of a late spring. The vault of the sky is replete with stars above Benjamin’s dark head of hair. He doesn’t look down at her, but from here she can see the hollows of his cheeks and the sunken look to his eyes. He looks thinner and tired, older since last she saw him, but the feeling inside of her is still there. 

He is still the most beautiful creature that she’s ever seen.

His shoes crunch on gravel. Behind them, the she-wolf at last catches up to him. Her eyes are narrowed. She saunters beside them, so that she walks beside the cage that holds Rey. She glowers down at the rabbit. Ben ignores her. 

They walk to a large black Landrover, where he opens the trunk and gently places the carrier inside... and promptly shuts the trunk. Benjamin sits himself in the driver’s seat, and Bazine beside him. Rey can feel the jump of the engine, then the wheels rolling on the gravel as the car peels away from the warehouse. Rey thrums with joy. Still, she feels wary. A tense silence stretches inside the vehicle.

After a while, it breaks. “You’re a _moron_ ,” says the she-wolf.

The words hang in the air. 

“Causing such an incident... for a _rodent_.” Her tone is even, and low. “Never in my life have I been so embarrassed.” She turns suddenly and Rey shrinks down in her cage, hiding. The rabbit stares through the back window at the black sky that scrolls behind them.

“Don’t touch — _DON’T touch_ _me_ ,” snarls Bazine. “You _sicken me_ , _Benjamin_. You‘re in love with a fucking _rodent_.”

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up,” the wolf says at last.

“How fucking _dare_ you,” she snarls. “I hope she dies _skewered_ on your _knot_ , Benjamin-.”

“ _Oh, here we go_.”

“— Because you’re getting _nothing from me_ for the rest of the rut.”

Silence. Then, one soft, plaintive word, “Bazine.”

“The window is fucking _shut_ ,” she insists. 

The air in the car grows heavy and pensive. For a while there is no sound besides the car’s smooth travel over the road.

“Do you still have the sample with you?” Bazine asks, her voice soft. “... Good boy.” 

The scent of blood fills the air at once. Rey chokes. She pulls the hem of her stained tee to her nose. The fear is a knife inside of her, because she is in a trapped space with two predators. 

“ _Oopsie,”_ Bazine coos. “That brings me back... reminds me of my mother.” 

Bazine asks him to take her back to her apartment. As terrifying as this is, Rey feels a spark of hope — Ben can free her later. They get onto the highway, then take an exit that gets back into the city. Ben drives around crowded streets and stops before a tall, high-end apartment building. Bazine says she’s sorry, and she’ll see him another night. Rey ducks down as they kiss, her insides twisting with a mix of conflicting emotions that she can’t process. Then the she-wolf gets out of the car and pushes the door shut.

They’re alone.

  
  


Ben watches the apartment, before turning the car back onto the road. Rey struggles to speak after staying silent for so long. “Ben,” she croaks. Her throat crackles from the lack of water.

Bazine isn’t here anymore, so she can raise her head and look at him from over the backseat. His pale hands grip the wheel. She can see his eyebrows and the corner of his eye in the reflection of the rear view mirror. “Ben.”

He slows to a stop at a red light. A herd of stags cross the street. “Can you take me home?” she asks.

It looks like he shakes his head. But then he says, “It’s being watched. You would... be _safer_ , at my house.” His voice is toneless. The way his eyes flicker (as the pedestrians cross) looks... off, but then the light turns green, and the Landrover moves forward.

Okay... okay, if he says it would be safer. 

Rey assumes they’re going to his apartment near the office, but to her surprise he returns to the highway. Her thighs shuffle. Her throat is dry, and she really needs to use the restroom. She spots a sign for a rest stop and says so, but the wolf assures her that they’re ‘ _almost_ _there_ ’. Almost there.

“It’s my family’s property,” he says slowly.

“O-oh?”

“It’s out of the way,” he says. They make a turn off the highway, and drive out of a small intersection of two gas stations each with a convenience store. Housing grows older and sparse, replaced by fields of soy and corn, for oil and feed.

“It must be peaceful,” Rey says.

“I think, you’ll like it,” he replies. “You can have the greenhouse.”

“You have a greenhouse?” she asks.

“It needs a little sprucing up, but...”

“Why do you have a greenhouse?”

Rabbits have night vision, but it is not very good. She needs some light, any light to see. Only the next streetlight on the road show her the wolf’s crinkled eye. “My mother likes flowers,” he says, “but she was too busy to ever use it.”

They talk a little bit about gardening. The dryness in her throat is overcome by the urge to talk to him again. Rey has peas and green onions on the balcony, but she doesn’t have enough room to get salad greens at a rate greater than what she consumes. Where she lived before, the climate could support peppers and tomatoes year-round, but Plutt screamed at her for the waste of his water... Then she coughs and clears her throat.

At last they drove down a long dirt road, past thick pine trees that throw them into total darkness. Rey is functionally blinded, but the Landrover slides onwards. They come to a stop, and Ben cuts the engine and gets out of the car. At first Rey feels a touch of fear, alone and blind inside of her cage. Then lights turn on, and the shape of a house suddenly materialized at the front of the car.

The trunk door opens and he grips the handle of the carrier and lifts it out, carrying Rey inside of that house. The lights are a warm orange, the floor hardwood. He sets her cage inside, before locking the front door. The walls are white and decorated with a few paintings and photographs. Ben steps out of his shoes and into a pair of slippers, humming to himself. He throws the keys into a nearby bowl. 

“If you give me a paperclip, I’ll get the padlock off,” Rey offers.

“Oh,” he says, frowning. “No shit?”

“No shit.” He disappears for a moment and hands her a paperclip. The angle is weird and Rey is tired and thirsty and dirty and slightly full of piss, but she aligns the pins inside of the tumbler and hears the little clicks. The padlock opens and falls off with a _thunk_. Benjamin claps, one, two times. She feels a little bit like an escape artist, or one of those sexy magician bunnies.

“Oh wow,” he says, “oh _wow_.” The rabbit pushes out the door of the carrier, and stumbles out on new, shaky legs. She braces herself one-handed against the wall for support. The room spins.

Benjamin stands, too big and too close in front of her. He shoves his head into the crook of her neck and breathes sharply. Surprised, Rey puts her hand on his shoulder and shoves him off. He makes a low sound in his throat. Not to be rebuffed, he squats his knees a little and wraps his hands around her rib cage, before shoving his face into her armpit. 

_Oh_ , Rey mouths. Her pulse skyrockets, she doesn’t want to be in the hands of a carnivore, not after what happened. “Benjamin get off,” she snaps. She pushes against his shoulders, and pushes herself off the wall to dislodge the wolf. Rey pulls her arms close to herself.

The wolf licks at his mouth and shakes his head. In the light of the foyer, Rey can see the red webbing in his eyes. He smiles in a friendly way, but his shoulders are hunched. There are no secret looks or secret scents that Rey can identify, because she’s a rabbit and he’s a wolf. The closest thing she can compare him to is Matt, who wore his happiness or horniness on his sleeve. Dogs are direct descendants of wolves.

Most likely, she’s safe, Rey figures. It could just be paranoia. “Benjamin, I need to wash first,” she explains. 

“Oh,” he said, “okay.” He walks further into the house and turns a corner. Rey follows, reluctantly. There’s the stale scent of wolf in the air. It reminds her of the scent of the old cars that Plutt got ahold of, the dark and stuffy interior that carried the musk of coyote or dog. 

“Watch your step,” he calls down. Rey looks up a flight of wooden stairs and sees a pair of bright gold eyes. “I’ll get, get some clothes for you,” he says.

As she follows him, she feels the dust on the wooden bannister. 

Ben sticks his head into a dark room and there’s a clicking sound. He grumbles under his breath. “Light don’t work,” he says. “Uh oh.” 

Rey peers past him. She can make out the tiles on the floor and the shape of a washtub and the toilet. The wolfy scent is stronger in there, without a window to provide air circulation. She says “It’s okay, if you could give me a flashlight. Or a candle...”

“No candles.” He’s behind her. Rey jumps in her skin and she has to force herself to _calm down_.

“No candles..?” she repeats.

“No...” He licks his mouth and sniffles.

“That’s okay,” she says. “Just... leave the stairwell light on, and I’ll leave the door open. That way I can see something.” He nods, sniffing again. There’s a _click_ as his throat constricts. Maybe he’s allergic to something. 

Abruptly he turns and darts back down the stairs. A door slams shut downstairs. Okay.

On the wall hook, there hangs a thick, wolf-scented towel, the main source of that perfume. Rey uses this moment of privacy to relieve herself in the toilet, before quickly stripping down and bundling her old clothes in a ball to put out in the hallway.

Her bare skin tingles. The scent of wolf grows sharper. Rey reaches into the bathtub and must yank and crank the faucets before water bursts down from the shower head and crashes into the tub. _The door_ — behind her, the hallway is empty save for the residual light from the stairwell. She gets the sense that she should lock it, but why? Benjamin was downstairs, and if she closed the door she would have to shower in the dark. Ridiculous. 

The water pouring down takes a minute to get lukewarm, before she steps inside. She wishes she had lessened the strength of the water, but she had assumed this would be a quick shower. _Brr_. Her teeth vibrate in her mouth. From the light that comes in through the shower curtain, she finds a misshapen bar of soap and three different bottles, with the labels washed or scratched off. She picks one up and pops open the cap, before sniffing dubiously at the contents. 

The light flicks off.

Rey blinks. She turns her head, listening but she can only hear the water crashing into the tub. A faint click? The shower curtain squeaks, as a heavy hand drags it aside. Rey steps aside and presses herself to the other end of the tub, the tiled wall cold on her back.

“ _Don’t move_.” The sound of the water pauses, as he steps in front of the head, in front of her. “ _Don’t be afraid of me_.”

Her knees knock together. She’s not scared, why would she be scared? It would, it would help if she could see him. The bottle in her hands tugs upwards. Rey flinches — she had it clutched between her breasts. He just wanted the bottle, okay he could have it.

“Did you like this?” he asks. “This was what I‘d put on to get _bitches_.” He exhales sharply, like laughter. “I’ll bet it worked on you... but I don’t want you smelling like _that_.” 

The water hushes down.

“I wish I met you when I was sixteen,” he says, gloomily. A thick, ketchup-bottle-squirt sound cuts the air and then a rubbing sound, skin against skin. “C’mon, bunny.”

Hands slide against her waist. Rey flinches and smacks his hands away. She’s not in the mood for that.

There’s a pause, and then he grabs her breasts.

“Stop it!” she snaps. At last her voice crawls up her throat. She shoves off his arms. His hands grip her shoulders and he _squeezes_ her collarbone.

His voice is thick, deepened, “Don’t you _fucking_ hit me.” Something drips from his mouth and splatters into the tub. “I could rip your throat out, right now it would be _so easy_ ,” he mutters.

Rey wonders if she could reach the door from here. If she shoved aside the curtains and hopped onto the toilet she could sprint out the door, if the door were open. If the door were closed, she would have to scrabble for the handle and lose time.

“Turn around.” Rey is frozen, so instead he grabs her shoulders and steers her around, before grabbing her neck and pushing her face into the wall tile. He grabs her waist and drags his hands up her ribcage, soapy fingers squeezing her breasts. His index fingers press into her nipples, like buttons. “You’re so small,” he mutters. “How‘m I gonna fit inside of you?”

Bazine’s words float to the top of her brain, _You’re gonna skewer her on your knot_. 

“Been awful quiet,” he says. Carefully he runs his palms up her armpits, then down from her shoulders, to her wrists. He tugs them downwards, forcing her to straighten her spine. He is strong enough to crush her bones; Rey breathes deeply through her nose.

He pulls her away from the wall so that the water can fall over her, rinsing off the soap. The water runs into her eyes and nose and she sputters, afraid. His lips wet her ears. “... I’m not such a bad wolf,” he says, “you _know_ I can be nice.” He wraps his arms around her midriff. Something hard and fleshy presses against her bottom.

At these words, another thought floats into her head: how lucid is he? Rey bites her lower lip, her mind reeling. Is _this_ how he’d treat a she-wolf? 

She remembers the red vial that Hux had handed to the wolf. The _blood_. Sometimes carnivores doped themselves with it; rumor has it that it makes them stronger and more confident. Sometimes they got a taste for it and turned feral -- went full _serial killer_. Her shoulders tensed at the sensation of his lips, the way his teeth just grazed the skin. She could feel warm saliva dripping from his mouth. Every atom in her body told her that death was imminent, that she had to run _now_.

“ _Kylo_.” He grunts. “I don’t think,” she begins, “that you are a very nice wolf.” She keeps her voice soft and lilting. It’s degrading, it doesn’t match the fear and betrayal that she feels towards him.

He rests his chin against her shoulder. She turns her head to face his. “... I’m sorry I cursed at you,” he says. “... I know you’re scared, but I don’t like being... _hurt_ , Rey.”

“You could’ve - could’ve _told_ me, that you were seeing Bazine,” she says. The water is turning cold. She shivers against him. Rey turns around and crosses her arms over her chest.

“You don’t understand,” he says, “there’s so many rabbits, and so few wolves. I have a duty.” There’s a pause. Something brushes against her cheek. “Rabbits are... expendable,” he sighs.

The water is getting very cold. She is not sure if Kylo will kill her now. She must get out, she must kick him someplace and make a dash for it. A rabbit is not strong enough to disable a wolf, but if she could get a head start she could outmaneuver him. She needs the nerve to do it, now while he’s naked and tired and blood drunk and his guard is down, before he takes it in his head to knot her and _tear her apart._

Yet now he wraps his hands around her waist and shoves her against the wall. He places his hands beneath her knees and hefts her up. No, nono _no_

She raises her hand and hits flesh, _hard_. Panicked, she breaks out of his hold and throws herself into the shower curtain. The curtain rings give beneath her weight and she hits the toilet, then rolls onto the floor in a wet bundle. Her hand scrabbles on the tiled floor, the door, and then the door knob. She can’t _grip_ it right, her hands are too wet. 

“The lock’s catched,” he says. His voice is soft.

A vice wraps around her throat. She’s lifted off the ground. She’s afraid, her heart stutters inside her chest. She’s going to die now, the wolf she loved so much is going to wring her neck and eat her. 

But the rabbit’s racing heart could not withstand this fear, and her body went slack in the maw of the wolf.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but the next one makes up for itt

I have to be a little more _careful_ with you,” he says, “don’t I?”

The morning light haloes his head. He reaches out a massive paw and slowly, slowly brings it towards her. Her breath hitches and the light goes hazy, as his fingertips brush against the crown of her head. Her scalp crawls at the sensation. Her stomach is a tight wad of fear.

“... You smell really different when you sleep,” he murmurs. “You’re so _light_ , too. You scared me a bit, after the mess you made in the bathroom...”

Rey only tolerates the petting. The wolf might still be blood drunk; she doesn’t want to do anything _rash_. That heavy hand that cards through her hair could just as easily crush her neck. 

His own hair sticks out in tufts from the tousled mess over his head. “I found some clothes for you,” he rasps. His hand leaves her. “Then you and I can have breakfast, and we can play outside. It’s gonna be a nice day today.” It’s hard to look him in the eye, but his lips pull into a thin smile. A shade of stubble darkens his chin. “Later we can go in the greenhouse, if you want.”

There’s a pause like he’s waiting for some confirmation. Rey nods her head, and his smile widens.

The mattress squeals as he pushes himself to his feet. He leaves the room.

Rey sits up in the bed. She looks around, and despite the overpowering scent of wolf, she realizes that she’s only in a _boy’s_ room. One wall is dedicated to trophies and medals. She sees little gold figures and images of wolves stalking or howling. The bed is very _long_. She looks around, hoping to see maybe the car keys sitting on the desk or hanging on a wall.

Benjamin returns through the doorway (he’s nearly as tall as it is), and he lays out a pink dress on the bed. He looks at her and follows her gaze. His hand raises to scratch the back of his head. “... When I moved out, Mom decided to do some sprucing up,” he said slowly. “I still can’t find my old books.”

Gently, he grasps the bedsheets and tugs it off of her. Rey mourns the loss of cover deep in her rabbit bones. Her muscles contract, and she freezes, curled up against the bed. She glances down at her pink, frail body and realizes with horror that she’s naked, from her shoulders down to her curled toes. 

The wolf’s jaw slacks. His dark, friendly eyes glaze over for a moment. Then he blinks and shakes his head, trying to recall himself. He grabs the pink dress, with white lace around the collar and the ends. It looks like doll clothing in his hands.

She realizes she needs to play along until she finds a means of escaping, so she forces herself to sit up. He places the dress over her, and Rey forces her head through the other end as quickly as possible. The wolf is pink in the face. His mouth seems full of something. Once Rey’s arms are through the sleeves, he reaches out and gently tugs at the fabric, centering the mother-of-pearl buttons over her chest.

Quickly he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and his throat constricts. He opens his mouth and tries to speak again, but saliva drips down his lip. Only a second later he stands up, hand pressed to his mouth. His eyes crinkle with apology as he backs out of the room. Rey hears a faucet open and run from the bathroom down the hall.

Her feet slip off the bed. 

She looks down the empty hallway, and the stairwell that leads to the ground floor. In sight of a clear line of escape, her leg twitches. Her blood screams at her to run, run now while she still can, but then the water cuts off. The wolf leans out from the bathroom. Her hopes plummet. Benjamin smiles and he says, “C’mere. Let’s get you all cleaned and brushed, sweetheart.”

The bathroom, or the stairwell? The wolf catches her fleeting thought; his smile fades and he mutters, “Do you really wanna try it?” He runs his tongue along his teeth, as if he tastes her hesitation. Benjamin is closer to the stairwell than she is. No. No, too risky.

Tentatively, Rey creeps down the hallway. The wolf plants his leg out in front of the corridor. His long, pale foot is as big as a paddle, so pale that it glows against the hard-wood floor. That is as far as he would let her go.

Each step takes a conscious effort. Her eyes see Benjamin, and her nose smells a wolf. And every nerve and fiber of her being, that craves self-preservation, says that every step she takes brings her closer to death.

She halts before him; she could go no further. That darkened bathroom yawns like a gaping maw, and breathes its hot, wolfy breath. Rey hears a splatter, and she glances down between the feet of the wolf. A clear droplet stains the floor. The nape of her neck prickles. Slowly, slowly the rabbit stretches a foot inside the doorway, past his furnace of a body, into the bathroom. 

The wolf follows inside like a shadow, and the door clicks closed. The light snuffs out. 

The only sound is the panting of the wolf. She had walked, of her own volition, into a trap. Her hands bunch into fists and her body goes hot and cold at the same time.

“I have a _surprise_ for you,” he says, before swallowing audibly. “Since this is _your_ home, too, Rey.”

The light flicks on. From dark to light, the change blasts her retinas. Rey startles and hits her ankle on something.

“ _Fuck_ ,” says the wolf, his eyes squeezes shut. “I fixed — I fixed the lightbulb...” He gestures at the recessed light in the ceiling, before rubbing gingerly at his face with his paws. 

Rey’s eyes adjust to the orange light. She stands in front of a narrow sink placed in the corner of the bathroom. She sees two girls: one in the speckled mirror over the sink, and then the other in profile in the perpendicular mirror on the wall. Shadows ring her eyes, like two boreholes in her skull. Her mouth is slack and red at the corners. The pink dress that she wears slips too low over her hollow chest.

Can a rabbit recognize herself in a mirror? 

Behind, her the wolf stalks closer, his shoulders squared. His arm slowly reaches around her — she’s trapped between the sink, his body, and his arm. “I wanna look at your _fangs_ ,” he says slowly, in his lilting voice, “and then I’ll brush your _hair_.”

His fingers go to a round cylinder, containing a ring of toothbrushes. His hand closes around a thin pink toothbrush. She needs some space, and she tries to back away but then she’s grabbed by the jaw. Rey freezes in place.

Clucking his tongue, he brings the toothbrush towards her obscenely pouched lips. His fingers squeeze her cheeks; of course a wolf is strong enough to rip off her jaw. Rey opens her mouth. Unable to look him in the eyes, Rey stares at that recessed light in the ceiling, as he probed her mouth. 

_Look at that_ , he murmurs. She feels the toothbrush slide against the walls of her mouth, the plastic ticking against her teeth. He mentions some buzzwords like _open root_ , and he makes a deadpan joke about rodents and dentists. Her humiliation flashes to anger. Plutt had refused to give her anything for her overbite, just gave her a bottle of aspirin and told her to fuck off. Once again, she is someone’s _pet_.

Then his thumb slides in. She recoils, but the rest of his hand pulls her forward by the jaw. The toothbrush holds back the other side of her mouth. The rabbit risks a glance into at his face and sees his intense interest. Drool pools down her lower lip, as his thumb runs along her her tongue. 

At once he releases her. Rey resists the urge to spit the dry taste of wolf from her mouth. She swallows to wet her parched throat, head spinning. The skin around her jaw itches. Her jaw is sore. The wolf promptly rinses the toothbrush and returns it to its holder.

He reaches to the other side of the sink to a white hairbrush. Rey shrinks back. She’s placing together the dress, the pink toothbrush, and now the comb with a rose design on the back. The question leaves her before she can stop herself: “Are these Bazine’s?”

Benjamin freezes. His eyes scroll away from her, his eyes narrowing. “No,” he says. He raises his hand and points at the comb, then Rey’s dress. “No, these are my _mother’s_.”

Rey frowns and looks down at her dress. Benjamin snorts, amused. “ _That_ one was a birthday gift. My mom used it as casual wear. I’m sure she won’t mind.” Rey thought on this — maybe, his mother would return. Wasn’t she a Senator or something? Kidnapping rabbit girls was _bad optics_ , for any party. Maybe this was a way out. “I don’t think Bazine even knows about this place...”

“... What?”

Rey hates herself for the waver in her voice. His eyebrows raise, but he’s busy picking out a grey strand of hair from the comb. “Turn around, bunny,” he says.

“Were you... were you dating —.”

“ _Turn around_.” His eyes flicker up, those long fingers poised over the tines of the brush.

“Do you love her?”

The wolf freezes. A muscle in his jaw jumps, and the comb _snaps_ in his grip. The air changes. Immediately she remembers that sometimes words are enough to get her killed. Are all carnivores the same? Her life is the shape of a horseshoe. 

From his mother to his _mate_ , his emotions flip like a switch. “I don’t know you,” she says, forgetting herself.

“Rey.” With a look and his voice, he turns her name into a threat.

“I don’t know anything about you,” she says.

“Great. Just... _great_ ,” he says, stiffly. With a flick of his wrist, he tosses his mother’s brush into the trash bin.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The snut;;

After a very late breakfast of canned peaches and one whole tin of SPAM, they went outside. The sun coats the woods in a white glaze. Together they visit the ‘greenhouse’, which is an old tent structure behind the house, filled with stacked pots and several large baskets of desiccated flowers. 

Ben grows sheepish about the condition of the greenhouse. He scratches the back of his head, and kicks at dead leaves scattered on the floor.

Her first instinct is to say ‘it’s okay’. 

It’s a hot and humid day. The air inside of the tent carries the musk of rotting vegetation, even though nothing could have grown inside for years besides mold and mildew. The tent is small already; it barely fits the two of them. The wolf reaches down and grabs a dead rose bush in his bare hand. He wrenches out the entire root ball, scattering dust all over his shoes. He lets out a disgusted sound, before tossing it through the flap outside. The wolf repeats this for the other pots.

When he’s finished, he claps the dirt from off his hands. He says he’s waiting for a shipment of food. He knows the greenhouse is small, but they have a lot of land in the back if she was serious about gardening. There’s a pause. He stares at her long enough that Rey shrugs her shoulders. Aren’t those his decisions? 

The wolf approaches. Rey had stood at the back of the greenhouse, trying to keep as quiet and out-of-the-way as possible. Now he’s spotted her. Her shoulders tense and she leans away to protect her vulnerable throat. His boots stop an inch away from the long flip flops he lent to her.

“What seeds do you want?” he demands. “I can order them.”

Rey tries to spit out a word to make him go away, but a millennia of instinct seals her throat closed. Noise attracts predators. 

“... Bunny?” His hands enclose her bare shoulders. He shakes her gently. 

Rey squeezes her eyes shut and swallows. She refuses to breathe his ugly scent.

He makes a small sound in his throat. Then he leans in, so his nose snuffles against her collarbone. It surprises her. Before she can think, he nuzzles her throat and presses his lips to the corner of her jaw. 

When she leans away, his arms loop around her stomach to hold her in place. Rey stares at the opaque light through the ceiling, trying not to think about the softness of his lips. After his investigation of her neckline, he releases her. He backs out of the greenhouse flap. Tentatively, Rey follows him into the sunlight.

He’s nowhere to be seen.

Rey blinks at the light, perplexed. He had just left a second ago; she could still smell him. Where had he gone off to so fast? She looks around, her ears prickling for any sign of the missing wolf. Difficult to lose such a large animal. Then she hears his thundering footsteps. She turns around.

The wolf collides into her.

x

She doesn’t remember what happened next. Wolves are not ambush predators, but they are very, very heavy. Maybe she isn’t dead because Ben didn’t want to kill her. The wolf recounts the thrill of the hunt, with stars in his dark eyes: the rabbit had slipped out of his grasp and bolted, and he lost her through the thick woods. The way he tells it, this isn’t a reflection on his hunting skills, but on her survival skills as a rabbit.

“But in the end, you did find me,” Rey says.

He shakes his head and says “You let me find you.” Rey snorts, disbelievingly, but Kylo insists, “ _You chose me_.”

Her smile fades. She looks into his face for a hint of sarcasm, but she doesn’t know how to read a wolf. Is he serious? “I didn’t _choose_ you.” She didn’t choose to be kidnapped and put in a cage by his friends. She didn’t choose to be molested.

“You did,” he answers. In two words, he thinks he’s made her.

Rey looks down at the white plate in front of her: on on side is canned hickory-smoked beans, with pieces of ham, and on the other is canned green beans seasoned with garlic powder. She looks at his face and sees his brow furrowed in bemused confusion. Disgusted, Rey pushes away the plate. 

She blinks rapidly. “Can I be excused?” she asks quickly. 

That proud smile sloughs off his long face. “Is something wrong with your dinner?” he asks.

“M’not hungry.” She aims her eyes down. She’s prepared for him to take insult. 

“... You _should_ ,” he says slowly. “You have a _big day_ tomorrow, bunny.” His tone attempts kindness, but there’s that edge: _I want you to do this. You have no right to refuse._

She shrugs her shoulders, trying to make herself as small as possible. _Here_ comes the offense. _Here_ comes the screaming.

Cutlery clinks. In front of him is a previously frozen meatloaf. “... Go to my old room,” she hears him say.

Rey waits for a moment, waiting for a caveat, but there’s only silence. She pushes her chair away from the table, and she runs upstairs. 

x

Rey lays curled up in the wolf’s long, stiff bed. The light is on, so she hides her head beneath the covers. She misses her friends: the hyena Finn, Rose the raccoon-dog, and Poe Dameron the stag. She misses her job and her little apartment. She wonders if she’ll ever return to them, or if she’ll live here forever until the wolf gets too bored or too violent and eats her.

The door swings open. At once the nostalgic voices in her head cut off. Fear takes its place. The lights go out from behind her blankets. Her hearing sharpens, so that the silence roars inside of her ears.

From inside her chest, her heart begins to tremble. 

The door clicks shut. The floorboards creak beneath his weight. Slowly the bedsheet peels off. She hears a breathy sigh.

“I can smell when you’re awake,” he says, “and when you’re scared, too.” The mattress creaks beneath his weight. “You show me everything there is to know, about you.”

Rey tries to put as much space between herself and his body as possible, but it’s a bed made for a teenage wolf. A heavy hand settles on her shoulder. Fear seethes through her limbs and freezes them. She lets him pull her to his chest, so her face rests against his collarbone, like a stuffed toy. He combs his paw through her hair in short, gentle strokes. Each short gasp of breath she draws pulls his scent into her lungs. 

He’s _warm_ , and _big_. If she could only spread her legs and rub herself — _how disgusting_ ,Rey thinks, horrified with herself. Still her body _pulses_ at the thought.

His hand pauses in her hair. Slowly, it slips down her shoulder, down her curled body. Her heart rackets upwards. Lips brush her forehead, as he pushes her onto her back. 

His hand slips beneath the hem of his mother’s dress. Rey hears a soft whimpering sound and realizes its coming from her throat. Tears in her eyes. He snuffles against her neck and makes those soft, sweet wolf kisses with his tongue against her throat. His paw slips down the waistband of her old underwear, spreading her apart.

_Don’t_ , she chokes. She’s scared. (She'll always be scared, probably)

The wolf makes a sympathetic noise as he rubs his hand on her. The friction sends a pulse of pleasure down there. Her body tenses in anticipation of what her head rejects. She feels herself getting wet, allowing two thick fingers to push inside her. Her body is trained to seek penetration. Doe horny, doe fucks, doe pumps out fourteen million kits. This is the circle of her life and her mother’s before her. 

At the climax, she buries her face in his neck. Her pleasure washes over her in waves. His hand pumps her gently, curling fingers inside of her. She thinks of a big, fat knot filling her with seed and it sends another _thrill_ of pleasure down her back. She shimmies her hips to chase the sensation, drawing a _low_ sound from the wolf.

_Will he want you now?_ he asks _._

Rey can barely think about what he wants from her now, until the blanket falls off. The mattress shifts as he sits in front of her. “ _No_ ,” she whimpers.

He grabs her by the knees and drags her closer.

“ _No_ ,” she chokes, squeezing her eyes shut. 

There’s a wet sound. “Say you belong to me.” He snarls, “ _Say you belong to me, Rey_.” He grips the neck of the dress and rips it down her chest.

Dumbly Rey repeats his words.

“ _Rabbit slut_.” Contempt drips from his shuddering voice. “How stupid did you think I was?” The mattress squeaked and something hot splattered all over her chest. “You’re even worse than me,” he spits. 

Hands drop down on her body. She can feel him rubbing his seed onto her stomach, her breasts. So she would carry his scent. She would belong to him. Rey felt herself spiraling outside of her head. She doesn’t understand doesn’t know.

He pumps himself wetly and slides his palm between her breasts, before wrapping his hand around her throat. He squeezes gently. Rey’s fingers curl around the bedsheets. Stars burst in her eyes. “What’s his name?” he asks.

Her feet paddle against the mattress, trying to run away.

His grip tightens. _What’s his name?_ he asks. _Do you remember, the night that I called you?_ Drool slides down the corner of her mouth. 

The knot toy. She tries: “Kn-knot...” He laughs soundlessly, squeezing harder. _Toy,_ she squeaks.

The wolf laughs again, a sensation that travels down his arm and through her throat. Her chest rises and falls, and her hands grow cold. It’s very possible for a rabbit to die of fear; they’re meant to run from danger, not endure it at length. No creature deserves that.

His grip loosens. His hand gently cups the side of her face, his thumb drawing a line of saliva down her jaw. He rests his elbow beside her head, gazing down at her with soft gold eyes. A smile on his face, he says, “I don’t believe you.” Then, “that’s _okay_.”

Rey’s eyes burn, but she’s afraid to blink. She’s not sure if she’s still allowed to live. He raises his free hand and taps the tip of his nose with his finger, then hers. 

“Whoever he is, he’s - he’s nothing,” he murmurs, eyes flickering away. To reassure himself he places his palm over the flat of her stomach and she winces, but he doesn’t notice. “He’s nothing, right? Some fucking rodent asshole. I’ll kill - I’ll _kill him_ if he comes after you. Is he coming after you?” His eyes flick down, pupils drawn to pinpricks. 

Rey shakes her head. Kylo stares hard at her and his nostrils flare. Rey is terrified; she’s not sure _what_ he could possibly be sensing from her. What does the _truth_ smell like to a wolf? If he doesn’t get it, will he kill her? Will he choke her again?

After a while he looks away, his jaw relaxing. His tongue flickers over his teeth. “ _I don’t_ ,” he says, “ _want to hear about Bazine._ ” Pain in his voice. 

_Forget that she exists_ , he says. His hand idly brushes a tear from the corner of her eye. 

**Author's Note:**

> started writing this before learning about beastars ;-; good anime. i love dark zootopia


End file.
